8 mallet: coal-fields of the naga hills. 



In their second notice of the Assam coal,* the Committee record a 



Lieutenant Brodie, fresh discovery of the mineral in the Disang river 



1839 



by Lieutenant Brodie in 1839 : specimens were 



forwarded to them for examination, and proved to be of good quality. It 



. „ n seems that in 1840 the Assam Tea Company were 



Assam Tea Company, ^ -' 



^S**^- about to establish a coal quarry in this situation 



with the intention of keeping a depot supplied from it at Dikhu Mukh on 



the Brahmaputra. The Company at this time apparently had a quarry 



actually at work at Jaipur.f 



Mr. Bruce, who examined the Saffrai in 1838, had received infor- 



. „ ^ , mation of coal in the Dikhu, but its existence 



Mr. A. H. Landers, ' 



1842. seems to have been first actually proved by Mr. 



Landers, Special Assistant to the Commissioner, who, in 1842, found two 

 or three beds, and worked one of them, near the village of Namsang, 

 on account of Government ; this seam was 6 feet in thickness. A further 

 _ ^ trial was subsequently made by the Assam Tea 



Assam Tea Company, 

 1842-44. Company, who raised 1,000 mans of coal and tried 



it on board their steamer. Mr. Smith, the commander, pronounced it 



" the best he ever had on board a steamer, generating steam quicker 



without clinker, and far superior to any coal in Calcutta/' J 



The final report of the Coal Committee was published in 1845, in 

 which, under the head of Assam, a digest is given 



for the investigation of of all the then existing information regarding the 



the coal and mineral re- i r> i i j_ • t j-i, • i j • 



of India, for coal of that provmce. In tneir concludmg re- 



sources 



May, 1845. marks " on the carriage of Upper Assam coal to 



Bengal," an estimate is furnished of the cost at which it could be deliver- 

 ed by native boats at the depots on the Ganges, the conclusion the Com- 

 mittee arrived at being, that about 8 annas a man would cover aU 

 expenses. 



* Journal, Asiatic Society, Bengal, Vol. IX, p. 213. 

 t Journal, Asiatic Society, Bengal, Vol. IX, p. 213. 

 % Coal Committee's Report for May 1845, p. 112. 



( 276 ) 



